A New Life
by Dea de Verum
Summary: Melinda had grown up and is now giving an interview on her past. Read and review or I'll get you! Rated T for rape and depression.


Hey everyone! This is an assignment I had to do for school, interviewing a character from a book. It is not my best work, but I hope you enjoy it. I understand it doesn't sound like Melinda in the book, but the idea is that she had grown and matured. Thus, she is different, and entirely my imagination and how I wish her to grow up to be.

Also, I would appreciate some feedback before I turn this in. I don't care whether it is praise or criticism. Actually, I want to know the good parts and the bad. Because everything usually has good and bad. If you think it sucks completely, go to hell.

Disclaimer: I do not own Melinda or anything referenced to Speak. That belongs to Laurie Halse Anderson. I merely made this piece for a class assignment, and decided to share it with others, seeing I do this for fun and to get an A.

Speak Interview

Interviewer: Welcome. Here today we have Melinda Sordino. She founded and works at Speak Out, an organization that helps traumatized kids with art. She is now famous for her bestselling book, Healing through Art, which has become a New York Times Bestseller. She talks about how art can help you get through your problems, and how art helped her get through her trauma. So Melinda, why did you found Speak Out?

Melinda: Speak Out was a way to put my energy into helping others who had experienced trauma, like I had. I wanted to help those who struggled to get better, much like my art teacher in high school, Mr. Freeman, had. Without someone to guide me, I probably would have never spoke again. It was easier to remain silent because I was alone. So by creating a nationwide organization, we can reach out to those kids and show they were not alone, and that if they make the effort they can get better too.

Interviewer: What traumatized you?

Melinda: (deep breath) Going into my freshman year in High School was very exciting. So exciting, that a few of my friends and I got invited to a party. There were no parents, and plenty of beer to go around. The dream high school party, and everything was going well. Soon enough I got drunk, and one senior, I am not permitted to release his name, took me away from the party. I was drunk and didn't know what to do. Then he raped me.

Interviewer: (Gasps) I am so sorry! But how did you respond?

Melinda: I was scared, so I called the cops. Someone at the party next to me realized what I was doing, and yelled that the cops where coming, before slamming the phone down. I panicked, and walked home. I was scared and hurt. I didn't know what to do, and was numb. It was the worst feeling in the world. All I could think was being raped, over and over again in my head.

Interviewer: So why didn't you tell anyone?

Melinda: I couldn't. The words got stuck in my throat, and my thoughts were irrational. Would anyone believe me? Why me? I felt weak that I had been raped and soon I had no other thought except to block it out. By the time I could tell someone, I had blocked out all thought about it, and to tell someone would mean to remember what had happened to me.

Interviewer: People say that you just didn't speak about the rape; you just didn't speak at all. Why?

Melinda: I couldn't. When I went to school that fall, no one would speak to me. I was the girl who got the party busted at the end of the summer. I was uncool, unpopular. My friends had abandoned me, so I felt no support. I felt hopeless, and it was hard to remain silent, but it was almost impossible to speak out and say why I was this way. People just didn't want to listen to me, and I wasn't voluntarily giving the information.

Interviewer: So instead of being the victim, you were the criminal?

Melinda: Yes. I was an outcast, shunned by everyone for breaking the high school social code. I hated it, but I was so depressed I couldn't make any effort to make it better. School was a living hell for me, and I couldn't even escape at home. The only time I ever felt all right was when I was in art class with Mr. Freeman and an old closet at the school I use to hide in when no one was looking.

Interviewer: Why was art so helpful to you?

Melinda: Art was a way for me to escape. By making something it forced my mind to focus on it and ignore my feelings about the rape. It also did not require me to speak. I was able to speak through my art. It made me feel better making me feel emotions that didn't deal with it, but it reminded me that I was still human and could feel.

Interviewer: What about Mr. Freeman?

Melinda: What about him? How he talked about art? How he was able to explain that emotions and art could be put together that eventually became a healing process for me? Mr. Freeman didn't pressure me to do anything except to portray my emotions in art. It made me feel bad sometimes, but in the long run it ended up really helping me. He was probably the person who helped me recover the most.

Interviewer: Describe your technique in Healing Through Art.

Melinda: I was inspired by Mr. Freeman's art class my freshman year, because it is similar. The basic idea is to take an everyday object, like an apple, and focus on it. You draw, sketch, mold, cut, shape, paint, print, or any other thing that involves art with that object. Just focus on it and make it art in as many different ways that you can. You would be surprised how many ways you can portray one simple object and how many emotions you can see with it and with that, confront them.

Interviewer: How is this different from Mr. Freeman's art class?

Melinda: It is different because in this book it encourages to share your art with others. People around you are one of the most important things in recovering from a trauma. By sharing you get the pain and suffering out in the open where your loved ones can understand why you are like this. And with them knowing they can help you, because no one can do it alone.

Interviewer: So here we go. Melinda Sordino has been through a lot in her life, but throughout all the sadness, she has managed to turn her grief into a way to help others. All of us applauded her for her courage to admit what had happened to her, and how she made it through to being a normal, happy human being.


End file.
